January 15, 2015 10:15am ESTAugust 13, 2014 2:52pm EDTOklahoma is conducting three investigations of alleged abuse toward women by football players. The problem, SN's Matt Hayes writes, isn't that they could play; it's how the school is handling each case.Frank Shannon (20)(AP Photo)

The best way to unfold this mess, this confounding, confusing and bordering on criminal mess, is to start from the beginning.

Oklahoma has three players — three stars and potential major contributors to the team — connected to complaints of abuse toward women. All three could be on the field at the end of August when the Sooners, Sporting News' preseason No.1 team, begin the 2014 season.

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That, everyone, isn't what's shocking. This is: In one fell swoop, the University of Oklahoma's game plan on these three players consists of trying to force one out of school, petitioning the NCAA to get another eligible, and suspending another until his case moves through the legal system.

On their own, each case, when presented with facts at hand, is full of multiple accounts of who did and who said what. That's to be expected.

What isn't typical is how the university is handling each case, and how it sends a clear, disturbing message to not only members of the football team, but more important, victims of abuse.

Players are bulletproof, victims are targets.

This story begins in January, when linebacker Frank Shannon, the team's leading tackler and an All-American candidate, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman. The woman eventually decided to not press charges, and the district attorney involved says there are conflicting accounts of what happened.

After investigating, the university decided there was enough evidence to suspend Shannon from school for a year. Earlier this week, the school revealed it was trying to enforce the suspension by taking its case all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court — because a district judge ruled earlier that Shannon should not be punished.

Shannon is currently practicing with the team while his university is doing everything it can to kick him out of school. And if you think that's bizarre, we'll now move to the case of Dorial Green-Beckham — where his university is doing everything it can to keep him in school.

Beckham was kicked off the Missouri team earlier this spring when he was accused of pushing a woman down stairs. The woman refused to press charges — Green-Beckham's girlfriend actually sent texts to the woman asking her not to press charges — but Missouri saw enough to suspended Green-Beckham and later kick him off the team.

Even Green-Beckham, after getting kicked off the Missouri team, alluded to problems in a written statement: "I take responsibility for my conduct and my mistakes. Don't blame my girlfriend and her friends for anything. I am not looking for sympathy."

Three months later, and with OU deep in the Shannon investigation, the Sooners signed Green-Beckham. This week, OU officially applied to the NCAA to waive the transfer rule of sitting out one season based on the NCAA's "run-off" rule.

Because Green-Beckham was "run-off" the Missouri program, because his spot on the roster was eliminated because of "factors out of his control" — he was never charged, so why should he have been kicked off the team? — OU is asking for NCAA relief.

Anyone else see the disturbing game of semantics OU is playing with Green-Beckham? If he did at OU what he did at Missouri, Green-Beckham would be forced through the same Title IX process Shannon went through — the same process that led OU to suspend Shannon for a year.

Mixon, who by all accounts would have competed for the starting spot, has been indefinitely suspended and banned from all team activities until the case runs its course.

So let's recap, shall we?

— The university is trying to suspend for a year a player that hasn't been charged but, according to its own findings, clearly did something worthy of suspension. — The university is trying to gain immediate eligibility for a player who hasn't been charged, but clearly, by his own admission and from detailed police reports, did something worthy of being kicked off another team.—The university has suspended indefinitely a player who has been accused of hitting a woman — a player whose defense is the woman started the confrontation — but no arrest has been made.

And we wonder why players feel they're bulletproof; why players see the complete contradiction in the way cases are handled, and figure the risk of running afoul of the law may not be such a risk after all.

Because the more we allow players to get back on the field when victim after victim refuses to press charges, the more the level of risk increases around college campuses. And frankly, the more bulletproof players really do become.

The reality is, all three players will likely be on the field when Oklahoma plays host to Louisiana Tech to begin a season of huge expectations. All three have technically sound legal arguments.

See where this is headed?

If they're not charged, why shouldn't they be allowed to play? If the women refuse to press charges, whose fault is that?